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All of this kept peoples attention away from Frances actual objections to military action, amongst which were that it did not believe there was an imminent danger from WMDs, that invading Iraq had nothing to do with fighting terrorism and that a war would destabilize the Middle East.

He relished the task, launching a reign of terror which was brutal even by the standards of the Baath Party.

According to opposition groups, thousands were murdered.

Victims were made to drink petrol before being set alight or strapped to concrete blocks and tipped into the Shatt-al-Arab waterway.

Bodies were bulldozed into the ground and, according to aid agencies, Al-Majid was filmed selecting Shia prisoners for execution. It was for his earlier atrocities, though, that he gained his nickname. He masterminded chemical attacks on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s.

On one occasion he rejected suggestions he had killed 182,000 people with the chilling reply: "No, it couldn't have been more than 100,000."

His most infamous outrage was the use of poison gas to kill thousands of Kurds at Halabja in 1988.

Human Rights Watch covers it.

The Telegraph has done a series of stories: here, here, and here:

Like thousands of other Kurds who lived in Halabja he had become inured to the frequent artillery bombardments launched by Baghdad's big guns across the valley.

It was not until he saw a yellow mist settling over the town that he realised this attack was different.

Within hours his five children had died an excruciating death. They were among about 5,000 Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's poison gas on March 16, 1988, as he exacted a hideous revenge for their support of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.

The Christian Science Monitor did this story:

The memory of every Iraqi Kurd is seared with vivid images of Baghdad's 1988 genocide against its own ethnic Kurds when troops loyal to the Iraqi strongman were under orders to kill every Kurdish male in northern Iraq between the ages of 18 and 55. During the Anfal campaign, rights groups say more than 100,000 men disappeared, 4,000 villages were destroyed, and 60 more villages were subject to chemical weapons attack.

Some 5,000 Kurds died during the gassing of Halabja alone. The photograph of a man shielding an infant with his body ? both killed by gas ? has become an icon of Kurdish suffering and of Iraqi war crimes.

Although a part of the defense establishment didn't believe it for a time, the State Department apparently didn't get the word even in 2001.

This site has photos.

Why this should be hard to believe when Iraq was actively using chemical weapons against the Iranians at the time, and more and more mass graves with thousands of bodies from simple mass murder each are turning up in Iraq, I'll neven know.

Saddam's government apparently even killed as many as 61,000 just in Baghdad alone.

The survey obtained Monday, which the polling firm planned to release

How about this? http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html Don't pretend it didn't happen.

by frying them with rayguns

After which, they can still go home to their spouses and children, which is far more than they could say under the Old Regime. Of course, this won't stop them from strapping explosives around their waists and blowing up children.

Did the Kurds have evidence?

the WMDs *NEVER* existed???

http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html

Just listen to the press.. forget about the dead kurds that were gased by iraq. forget about the Iranians that were gased by iraq. The press is right. The wepons of mass destruction never existed. I mean it is not like you could hide 200 gallons of the stuff somewhere in the 168,753 square miles that makes up Iraq, and not find it in a year.

In a world where corporation are suing people for stating there opinion, how can someone geet attention to there cause?

Maybe like people do in a world where dissent means entire villages get gassed? (Careful, very grisly photos.) Or maybe like they did in a world where dissenters got rounded up in a stadium and shot? Or where they get stoned to the death, or where they get whipped to death, or where they get hanged... No need to go on.

Please read your quote once again -- you'll discover something important:

In a world where corporation are suing people for stating there opinion, how can someone geet attention to there cause?

You are taking the standpoint that you want your adversary to be kind enough to stop suing you. Don't. They won't. Accept that this is the situation you have. Deal with it. Work around it.

You ask how to do this? I'm sorry, you must explore this by yourself. If you don't have the stamina to do this simple exploration, where would you find the stamina to go through the actual struggle?

if people keep getting pushed around for there opinions,

Name one country where this has not happened.

and newspaper,ISPs and Magazines keep getting sued for publishing other peoples opinions,

Deal with it.

breaking windows may be are only course.

How can it be a course when it doesn't accomplish anything?

Maybe there is a fundamental difference between American and European political work. From time to time I read with great astonishment about how American workers when they are downsized or fired suddenly find themselves locked out of their workplace, unable to enter. Here in Sweden that's utterly impossible, absolutely unthinkable. You get ample warning, several weeks at least, months when possible. You get a little coffee-break party with cake and short speeches. You get a present or two from your colleagues and another from the company -- nothing fancy usually but it's something to remember them by. Often you get things like job-search courses to help you on your way.

Just getting locked out is utterly impossible. I don't know if it's against the law but it seems likely.

And when I've disagreed with a boss I've always made it very, very clear. My current boss knows fully well how clueless I consider some of his decisions.

Yet yours is the land of the free.

Why are we so much stronger than you before our bosses and employers? Could it be because we expect political struggle to be hard and painful work that requires significant risks and endless patience? Whereas you seem to expect something like a baseball match: A short rush of adrenalin throwing rocks and after that, somehow, things will be magically solved.

Adrenalin rushes don't have that effect.

Unless you change your tactics you just won't get anywhere.

Name me one people that attained its freedom by smashing windows.

(Goodness, am I getting long-winded here. Somebody really pushed me a button...)

Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.